Fic: "The Needs of the Few" (10/23)
Title: "The Needs of the Few"
Canon characters/Pairing(s): Kirk & McCoy, Pike, Finney
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5,063
Warnings: Foul language, political situations, military stuff.
Summary: As cadets on a summer internship, Kirk and McCoy are supposed to keep their eyes open and their mouths shut. As far as Bones is concerned, that’s just plain wrong on Jim Kirk, but Jim seems determined to follow orders and fall in line for a change. After all, they’ve both seen enough trouble in two years at the Academy, and this is the Peace Mission of Axanar. However, when a mystery starts to weave itself around the mission, and the senior officers don’t seem interested in investigating, how far can Kirk and McCoy let it go?
Notes: I FAILED. Oh, I made an epic fanfic fail. This chapter? This was supposed to come before the last chapter I posted. Yes, that's right, I posted them OUT OF ORDER. So, if you would be so kind... this comes after chapter 9. I re-tagged the last chapter I posted as chapter 11, and re-ordered the date-time stamp so that it appears after this one in my journal. All of the links and numbers SHOULD be correct now, so you can read it in order. Please forgive my fanfic transgressions, and I'll try to keep my content in order from now on.
Previous chapters: One, Two, Three, Four(A), Four(B), Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine
Chapter 10
Doctor Ankewicz looked up from the PADD he was reading as Leonard walked into sickbay. He was a tall man who looked like he never quite fit the dimensions of the room around him. Long limbs and long face, with just a bit of gray hair at the temples. He made Leonard feel oddly young, even though Leonard was pretty sure the guy was barely ten years older. “Feeling better, McCoy?”
“Yeah,” Leonard said, cringing at how gravelly his voice sounded. “Twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep will do that to a guy.”
Ankewicz let out a low whistle and put the PADD aside. “Twelve hours? I’m not surprised, though. You’ve been working double shifts for almost a week.”
Leonard knocked back a swig of coffee from his ever-present canteen. “And getting up earlier than than my shift so I can work on my thesis. Yesterday just pushed me over the limit. I’m telling you, I got more sleep during my residency than I have so far on this internship.”
The other doctor chuckled as he stood and stretched. “Did you drink that much coffee during your residency?”
Leonard snorted. “When do you think I got addicted to the stuff?”
“Fair enough,” he said with an easy grin. “Do you have research appointments scheduled today?”
“Just a couple from the beta shift rotation, but... you don’t have to stay. I know you and Doctor Singh pulled longer shifts already so I could get some sleep. I’ll take over from here.”
“Thanks, McCoy. I wasn’t going to ask, but I was hoping you might say that.” He picked up his scrub jacket and draped it over his shoulder. “And if trends continue, it shouldn’t be too bad. It’s been a quiet shift in here. A couple of people with headaches, but that’s about it. And...” He frowned. “No change with Brex.”
It was all Leonard could do to keep from growling. “He might be stable now, but how long can this last? We need to get him seen by Betazoid Healers, in person. Forget this subspace teleconferencing. They can’t diagnose or treat him like that. I don’t give two hoots about this diplomacy stuff right now. The fact that they’re just letting it go on like this? Unbelievable.” He shook his head and leaned against the wall, letting his eyes drift across sickbay to treatment bay two.
“I know, McCoy. And for what it’s worth, here’s a bit of wisdom to take with you to your next assignment.” He reached down and grabbed his PADD, tucking it neatly under his arm. “This is how it always will be. Medical will always take a backseat to everything else on the ship. Your opinion has no major impact on the ship’s mission. Your captain will want you there to patch up his crew, advise on medical safety issues, and deal with alien bacteria and parasites. But at the end of the day, unless the mission is a plague sweeping across a planet, or the mysterious illness of an important diplomat...”
His voice trailed off and he shook his head. “I don’t want to disillusion you or anything, when you’re just getting ready to start your Starfleet career. I don’t always feel like this myself.” He cast a quick glance back at treatment bay two. “It’s just hard not to be cynical right now. This is my second tour with Brex. He’s a good friend.”
Leonard nodded, feeling slightly numb, trying to stave off the hollow sensation of hopelessness. “Yeah,” he said vaguely.
“You take care, and page me or Singh if you need backup.” He gave Leonard a light clap on the shoulder and started walking towards the door.
The familiar sensation of having his shoulder clapped caused something to tighten in Leonard’s throat. He spun around. “Doctor Ankewicz?”
Ankewicz stopped and looked back. “Yes, McCoy?”
“I don’t think all captains would be like that. I’ve got to believe that the role of a ship’s doctor is more than mending broken bones and playing with alien viruses. There have to be captains who see that.”
“Really?” He shook his head, looking defeated. “Then I hope you get to serve under a captain like that. Have a good one, McCoy.” With a wave, he turned and walked out of Sickbay.
Leonard stared at the door. Barely above a whisper, he said to himself, “I hope so, too.”
With a sigh, he turned and pulled up the Sickbay log for the past 24 hours. Quiet. Very little to see. He signed off, then checked in with the duty nurse. Walsh had this shift. She had just finished checking over Doctor Brex, replacing the empty nutrition solution bag. Leonard had hoped he’d regain consciousness before he needed total nutrition supplementation, but that point had long come and passed. Now, there was an apparently healthy person lying on a biobed, completely dependent on tubes and nurses to survive.
But he wasn’t healthy, because he wouldn’t wake up. Dammit.
Even though he was well-rested, Leonard heaved a heavy sigh as he sat down in the chair next to Brex’s bed. It had become part of his routine. He would go and sit with Brex, just holding his hand and talking to him. Sure, the nurses all did that, too... but Leonard still felt responsible. It had happened on his goddamned shift.
Taking Brex’s hand, Leonard gave a quick squeeze. “Told you I’d be back. What’s new out here?” He began conversationally, as if Brex was wide awake. “Well, you might have noticed your Vulcan visitor last night. Or... this morning. Or sometime. I think I’ve lost track of time. Anyway, she said you’re still in there. And she said that your memory is a bit banged up, which makes sense if you look at the scans. I’ll show you the readings and all when you wake up.”
Come on, please wake up.
“So... the Vulcan, Ambassador T’Val... she’s not a healer, so she can’t fix whatever is going on in there, but she took a peek. She’s... an interesting individual. I dunno, maybe Vulcans are all peculiar like that, but hell, I haven’t met too many of them.” He shrugged to himself. “Haven’t met any, really. Pointy ears and green blood. If you know anything about Earth stories called fairy tales, you might know why that’s so damned funny. I think I like T’Val, though. She sent a report along with Doctor Singh to Betazed, and we’re hoping to get some more information back soon. Don’t know what we can really do for you, but we’ll try.
“We’re going to get you to a Betazoid Healer as soon as possible, but I have to be honest... I have no idea how long that will take. Unless the captain changes his mind, we’re stuck here until the Araxis mission is over.” He clenched his jaw slightly. “Captain Porter said that this mission is too important, and while I understand his point, that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
Leonard hunched his shoulders, leaning a bit closer to Brex, and lowering his voice. “I hate that I still don’t know how this happened to you. I hope you remember when you wake up.” He gave Brex’s hand another squeeze.
And felt a squeeze back.
It was faint. It could have been his imagination. “What the...” He looked up at the biobed displays. Without letting go of Brex’s hand, he reached over and pulled up a more detailed scan of brain activity. His scans had been mostly normal except for those few areas of reduced and atypical activity... which were now looking almost completely normal again.
Leonard whipped his head back around and gave Brex’s hand a tight squeeze. “Doctor Brex? If you can hear me, squeeze my hand. Come on. Give me a sign here.”
It wasn’t his imagination. There was a definite squeeze. Stronger this time.
Narrowly holding back his surge of excitement, Leonard called out over his shoulder, “Nurse Walsh! We’ve got a change in consciousness level!” Then quieter again, “Doctor Brex... Tavin... try to open your eyes. Can you speak?”
Hardly perceptible, Brex’s mouth moved.
Nurse Walsh burst into the treatment bay. “Has he opened his eyes? Are you going to try a stimulant?”
Leonard almost called for the stimulant, eager for more rapid improvement, but he shook his head. “No, and no. It’s never helped before, probably because this isn’t working like a normal coma. Let’s see if he’ll come out of it on his own.” He looked back down and leaned closer. “Come on, Doctor Brex... we’re right here. You can do it. Let’s see those peepers.”
Eyelids twitched. Fluttered. Blinked a few times.
“Computer,” Leonard said, “Reduce light in treatment bay two by seventy percent.”
The lights dimmed.
Brex opened his eyes. “McCoy?” His voice was rusty and dry, barely above a whisper, but the word was clear.
Leonard nodded, squeezing Brex’s hand again. “Yeah, it’s me,” he choked out, and realized that he was getting emotional. He swallowed it back. Professional. Right. Still, Brex had recognized him, which meant his memory wasn’t completely shot. Damn, it was a relief. “It’s me,” he said again. “How are you feeling? Are you in any pain?”
“No... thirsty.” He slowly turned his face to one side, then the other. “And stiff.”
Leonard looked up at Nurse Walsh. “Can you grab a cup of water with a straw?”
“Of course,” she said, smiling. Leonard didn’t mention the moisture on her eyelashes.
Leonard refocused on Brex. “Do you know where you are? Or how you got here?”
“I...” Brex looked around, taking in his surroundings. “I’m in sickbay. But... I’m a patient? What happened to me?”
Leonard breathed another mental sigh of relief. Brex was lucid and aware of his surroundings. “You lost consciousness, and you’ve been out for a while,” he said, not wanting to overwhelm the man all at once. “Can you sit up?”
“I... yes, I can.”
Leonard helped Brex into a sitting position, watching his balance and muscular coordination, and was somewhat shocked at how easily he moved. Sure, Brex seemed a bit stiff from holding still for so long, but he sat up almost entirely on his own. That was certainly not normal for a coma patient.
Brex glanced from side to side as if looking for something. “What time is it?”
“Around 0200 hours,” Leonard said cautiously.
Brex nodded, and was still quietly processing that information when Walsh came back in.
“I’ve got some water for you, Doctor.” She held it out with a hopeful smile.
Brex started to make a weak grab for the glass, but Leonard reached out and took it for him. “Sorry for the indignity and all, but you’ve been unconscious for a while, and if your coordination is off, I’d rather not risk giving you an ice cold bath on the biobed.”
“I don’t feel uncoordinated,” he said in confusion. Still, he cooperatively accepted the straw as Leonard held up the water glass for him, but his eyebrows furrowed more deeply as he looked around. He looked alert, but really uneasy as he got his bearings. Finally, he leaned back from the water glass, frowning.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Leonard asked casually, hoping Brex would come to the memories himself, if possible.
The question seemed to distract him from his thoughts. “We were... there was...” He screwed up his face, eyebrows furrowing deeply. “I was on duty, waiting for the Axanar delegates to arrive at their appointment.”
An uncomfortable sensation started twisting in Leonard’s gut. There had been two appointments, neither of which had been the morning Brex had lost consciousness. “Which appointment?”
“What do you mean, which appointment? The one that they’re scheduled for. The same one that all visitors on the ship get scheduled for.”
“So... the Axanar haven’t missed their appointment?” Leonard asked carefully.
“How could they? They just came on board a few hours ago...” Confusion rapidly turned into dismay. “How long have I been out?”
Leonard swallowed tightly. “A week. You’ve been unconscious for a week.”
“What caused it?” Brex asked rapidly. “What did the scans show?”
Leonard shook his head. “We don’t know. The closest thing we can figure is that you fell into an inexplicable coma a week ago with no evidence of injury or illness, and we haven’t been able to revive you. You came around on your own.”
Brex was shaking his head. “If this was a coma, would I be this alert so quickly?”
“No,” Leonard agreed. “And it wasn’t... well... the scans didn’t look right for a coma, but you were completely unresponsive. There was no other way to classify your condition. And...” He looked up at Nurse Walsh. “Could you do me a favor? Go page Doctor Singh. She’d want to know about this immediately. And... hell, I’m sure Ankewicz is still up, so you might as well pass on the news. Then send a communique to the bridge, letting them know. But until Singh gets here, give me a few minutes to talk to Brex alone and get him oriented.”
She gave a quick nod. “Yes, doctor.” Then she hurried off to the nurse’s station.
Leonard turned back to Brex, whose expression had shifted into something vulnerable and scared the instant the nurse had left the room. He recognized that sort of behavior. He’d seen it in people who were used to being in charge, and in Jim. “Doctor Brex? Are you sure you’re okay?”
This time, he shook his head. “McCoy, think something at me.”
“What?” Leonard actually startled at the odd request, and Brex’s unusually harsh tone of voice.
“Think something at me,” he said again. “As hard as you can. Loud. Think of a single, focused thing, anything that you can stick vividly in the front of your mind.”
“I... okay, but...” He didn’t understand why, but he didn’t question the request, and quickly called to mind the image of a hot, fresh cup of coffee, and thought about how desperately he wanted a cup right now.
“Are you doing it?”
“Yes, but...” Leonard’s voice trailed off as Brex began shaking his head. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t sense you.” Brex finally looked up and made eye contact again. His expression was bleak. “Nothing. I can’t hear your thoughts at all. Not even emotions. Nothing.”
“What?” Leonard spun around and tabbed a few commands into the biobed’s scanners, then grabbed the tricorder from the supply table and began a manual scan. “Is it just me? Can you sense anyone else?”
Brex was shaking his head slowly. “It’s like a ghost ship. There’s nobody there,” he said vaguely.
“Maybe it’s a side-effect of being unconscious for so long,” Leonard murmured, half to himself, half to Brex. “Maybe your brain just hasn’t caught up with being awake.”
“I don’t think so,” Brex said, but Leonard ignored him.
“We’ll need to do a more detailed scan, but it looks like you have slightly decreased activity in your psi centers,” Leonard rattled off. “We could try a stimulant. Or maybe it’ll improve once we get you up and walking around. Or maybe it’s -”
“Leonard.” Brex put his hand on the tricorder and slowly pushed it down until Leonard stopped staring at the screen and made eye contact. His demeanor was surprisingly calm, but Leonard could still see the anxiety hiding just below the surface. It was the sort of calm in the face of something terrifying that seemed like the hallmark of the best Starfleet officers. “We can’t fix it until we know what caused it. We need to contact Betazed. And -”
“We need to give you a chance to recover,” Leonard said firmly.
“We need to get to the bottom of this,” Brex said, not backing down. “And what’s this about the Axanar missing their appointment? If that happened while I was unconscious, how would I remember it?”
Leonard sighed inwardly. Doctor Brex was a man of science, and wouldn’t want information kept from him. “It didn’t happen while you were unconscious. That’s why I wanted to know what the last thing you could remember is. You had some odd electrical activity in your posterior cyngulate gyrus and temporal lobes, as well as your anterior sub-temporal-lobe. We worried that it might have impacted your memory.”
Brex was nodding slowly. “I remember looking at the chronometer and thinking that the Axanar should be arriving any minute. It was absolutely clear.” Then he frowned, and tilted his head. His gaze fixed on the far wall. “That’s not right. There’s other stuff, but... it’s like a dream, just beyond the edge of memory. And...” He shook his head. “McCoy... how many days passed between the Axanar’s appointment and when I lost consciousness?”
“Two. Almost two full days. Are you remembering something?”
Brex shook his head again, still staring at the far wall. “Did anything odd happen in those days?”
“The Axanar missed their appointment and rescheduled to the next day. They came to that appointment, but you got a strange feeling off them, or so you said. You sent me a communique saying you wanted to meet me the morning after the appointment when they actually showed up... but you showed up an hour late, as if you’d forgotten everything. You passed out not long after you got here. The communique you sent to me is missing from the ship’s database, as if someone deleted it.” Leonard felt like he was lost. Scrambling. “Doctor Brex... what’s going on?”
Brex pressed his lips together, then shook his head. “I don’t know. But whatever else isn’t working, my gut instinct, as you call it, is working just fine, and it’s telling me that something more is going on here, and we need to find out what it is.” He looked down at the tube in his hand and then peeked under the sheets, obviously checking what else he was connected to. “And we need to get all rid of all this mess so I can get off the biobed.”
“Are you sure? You’ve been unconscious for a week. The body doesn’t bounce back from a coma this fast.”
“I’ve never been in a coma, McCoy, but I’ve seen enough people wake up from them to know that this is something else. Other than feeling a bit stiff, I’m lucid, and I don’t feel uncoordinated.”
“You’ve got a gaping hole in your memory, and one of your essential neurological functions has blown a conduit,” Leonard said flatly.
Brex gave him a chagrined look. “Yeah. But I’m not an invalid. Get me off this thing, and let’s see if we can get to the bottom of this. Oh, and I could really go for something to eat right about now.”
Leonard nodded, reluctantly. He grabbed a pair of gloves, a piece of gauze, and a dermaseal bandage from the supply cabinet and sat down to remove the IV, but before he started, he gave Brex a searching look.
“What?”
“You said you almost-remember things after that morning. A bit like a dream. I know you can’t rely on that, but...” Leonard trusted his own gut instincts. He trusted Jim’s. He didn’t trust much else in the world, but his gut instincts were telling him that he could trust Brex, too. “Do you still have any impressions from that? Anything you can pull out of those hazy memories?”
For a long moment, Brex was quiet. Then, “It’s just an impression... but I keep thinking of a set of twins... not identical... and one doesn’t trust the other. No... that’s not it. It’s not a trust issue. Like a disagreement... something that can’t be reconciled. No compromise. But... gods, it’s a feeling, not anything I can describe without... well...” He pressed his lips into a bitter smirk and shook his head sadly. “Without telepathy. But even then, it’s so vague, and I have nothing I can pin it to.”
Leonard frowned. In the short time he’d worked with Doctor Brex, he’d known the Betazoid to be calm, emotionally balanced, and always in perfect control of himself. He’d never been flustered in the slightest. But then, of course, the guy had just lost one of his senses and several days of memories. That would send anyone into a tailspin. So Leonard just nodded. “I know it’s vague. I wasn’t expecting details. I was just... wondering.”
Brex gave him a defeated look. “I know. Sorry for the outburst.”
“No apologies needed,” Leonard replied. “Here, let’s get you unhooked and off the biobed. Doctor Singh should be here any minute, possibly with the Captain.” With practiced motions, Leonard pressed down with the gauze and pulled out the catheter. “Here, hold this. And...” He hesitated.
“What, Leonard?”
Leonard managed a wan smile. “It’s good to see you with your eyes open.”
Brex returned the smile, warmly and openly. “It’s good to have my eyes open. And... I don’t know how I’m so sure of this, but I know you’ve been sitting with me. Thank you.”
Feeling a warm tightness behind his eyes, Leonard opened his mouth to attempt an adequate reply, but the sound of the main door to Sickbay sliding opened cut him off. He sighed. “I think the welcoming committee has arrived.”
Leonard stepped back from the bed just in time for Doctor Singh to hurry around the curtain and grab a tricorder, speaking rapidly. Only seconds later, Captain Porter hurried through the doors, apparently having just beamed up from the surface when he heard the news. Ankewicz appeared after another minute, hair dripping wet, apparently having just gotten out of the shower.
In all the commotion, Leonard slipped out of Sickbay, unnoticed.
*********
Jim rubbed his eyes sleepily against the bright light of the hallway as he stepped out of his quarters. The door slid shut behind him. “This had better be important, Bones,” he said, then coughed and cleared his throat. “Your comm woke up everyone in the room, including me.”
Bones, who was fully dressed and looked far too awake for 0300 in the morning, rolled his eyes and grabbed Jim by the arm. “It’s important. Come on. Need a place where we can talk.”
Jim shook off his grip. “No, Bones. It’s the middle of the night, I only got to bed an hour ago, I need to be awake in three hours, and I’m out of uniform. Tell me here.”
Bones looked around warily, then sighed. “Brex woke up,” he said in a low tone.
Suddenly, Jim felt a lot more awake. “I... that’s awesome... how is he? Has he been able to talk? What did he say? Who did it to him?”
Bones was shaking his head slowly. “Physically? He’s doing a hell of a lot better than I would have expected. In fact, it’s crazy, but at first glance, he looks fine. Talking, lucid, mobile, but... he can’t remember anything. Nothing from the attack, or two whole days leading up to the incident.”
“That’s good... and bad,” Jim replied carefully.
“You said it.” He took one more nervous glance up and down the hallway, and then stepped closer to Jim, speaking barely above a whisper. “Also... his telepathy is gone.”
“What?” Jim hissed. “Shit. Not good. Really not good. And it’s specifically his telepathy and his memory from the two days before he went into the coma? Nothing else is wrong?”
“Everything else seems absolutely fine when we check his scans up against Betazoid norms and the scans that he took of himself earlier that week,” Bones said, shaking his head. “And even in the parts of his brain that process his telepathic sense and memory, there’s nothing structurally wrong.”
A hundred thoughts ran through Jim’s head, including the fact that he shouldn’t be getting into this, but his instinct was screaming that someone had attacked Brex with a really specific purpose in mind. The initial loss of consciousness was suspicious enough, but for a telepath to lose his ability to read minds just when fishy stuff was happening? It didn’t seem like a coincidence. However... Jim had enough personal experience with paranoid suspicions of sabotage to know better than to latch on to vague suspicions without solid evidence. Forcing his paranoia into a box with a tight lid, Jim asked, “What could cause that?”
“I don’t know. We’ve been in contact with Betazed about this since it began, but we sent a new communique when he woke up. We’re still waiting for a reply from the healers there, but until they examine him directly, even they might not have answers. It could be anything. Hell, it could be a result of the coma itself,” Bones said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “Could be a response to whatever happened to his brain and memory in the first place. Could be part of the recuperative process for this particular situation.”
“But you don’t think so,” Jim said, knowing Bones would keep filling in details as long as Jim gave him openings.
“I’ve done some research, and the literature from Betazed has some references to memory and sensory loss, including telepathic sense, after long-term loss of consciousness, but... I don’t know what I think, kid.” He wrapped his arms around his stomach and took a deep breath. “But I do have a question for you.”
“Hit me.”
“If I told you to think of an image of two people... twins, but not identical ones... where one didn’t trust the other... or had some sort of irreconcilable disagreement, what’s the first thing you think of?”
Jim frowned. “You mean like an allegory? Maybe two actual people, but maybe two groups, who are effectively similar but they’re at odds?”
“Anything,” Bones said, his voice carefully neutral.
“The Hatfields and the McCoys.”
Bones scowled in a way Jim had never seen before. “If you ever say that again, I will find ways to torment you that you can’t possibly imagine.”
Jim waggled his eyebrows and flashed his best lovable idiot grin. “Kinky, Bones!”
“Jim.”
“I know, I know.” He sighed. “It’s almost too obvious. The Axanar and the Araxians. And I almost don’t want to know, but... did Brex say something like that?”
Bones nodded, then readjusted his arms across his chest. “Could have been something he dreamed while he was out. Could be nothing. But Jim... there’s got to be more going on.”
Jim opened his mouth, but swallowed back his agreement before the words could form. He couldn’t go there. Fuck, he wanted to dig right in, and he knew there was something more going on, but if he admitted it, he’d be going down a rabbit hole and he didn’t know if he’d be able to dig out again. Feeling angry at himself and maybe a bit sick, he forced himself to shrug. “It’s possible.”
Bones scowled at him. “Jim, I know you said don’t want to get involved, even though it’s making me wonder who the hell you are and what happened to the real Jim Kirk, but there’s something going on here.”
“I know, I know, I know!” Jim hissed. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes for a second, trying to clear his head. “God damn... Bones, you know what happened last time I got too wrapped up in mysteries and conspiracies and other paranoid shit. I can’t do this again. Not now! Not here!”
“Jim... slow down. This isn’t what happened last year. This is... this is real. We’re both seeing the same thing, and there’s no mistaking it. I’ve seen it up-close. You know there’s something going on. And I’ve been pulled into enough meetings with senior officers about Brex to get a decent sense of what they’re doing with all this horse shit.”
“A whole lot of nothing,” Jim said tightly.
“Sure as hell seems like it.”
Jim pinched his bottom lip between his teeth. He really didn’t want to hold back anymore. It was too late, and he was too tired. And fuck it, this was Bones... and Bones was right. Jim let out a heavy sigh. “If there’s something going on, and they miss it, there could be real trouble,” he said, voicing the root of the fear that had been nagging at him for days.
Bones eyes widened for just a split second before he nodded firmly. “Damned straight. They’ve got enough evidence that... dammit, they should have found something by now!”
“They should have enough evidence to know that something fishy is going on,” Jim agreed.
“Then why the hell aren’t they treating it with more suspicion?” Bones growled. “How can they not see it?”
“Because there’s nothing solid. It’s circumstance. And because the diplomatic situation is so delicate, they’re going to sit on it,” Jim answered, trying not to sound like that idea made his blood boil.
“Like a damned hen trying to hatch a rock.”
Jim snorted. “And you call me a farm boy.”
“Only to get a rise out of you. So... what do you think?”
Jim stared at Bones for a long moment, letting his thoughts swirl in his sleep-deprived brain. Nothing solidified. “I don’t know.”
Bones pressed his lips together, staring at the wall. “Neither do I, kid. Neither do I.”
*********
To Chapter 11
Canon characters/Pairing(s): Kirk & McCoy, Pike, Finney
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5,063
Warnings: Foul language, political situations, military stuff.
Summary: As cadets on a summer internship, Kirk and McCoy are supposed to keep their eyes open and their mouths shut. As far as Bones is concerned, that’s just plain wrong on Jim Kirk, but Jim seems determined to follow orders and fall in line for a change. After all, they’ve both seen enough trouble in two years at the Academy, and this is the Peace Mission of Axanar. However, when a mystery starts to weave itself around the mission, and the senior officers don’t seem interested in investigating, how far can Kirk and McCoy let it go?
Notes: I FAILED. Oh, I made an epic fanfic fail. This chapter? This was supposed to come before the last chapter I posted. Yes, that's right, I posted them OUT OF ORDER. So, if you would be so kind... this comes after chapter 9. I re-tagged the last chapter I posted as chapter 11, and re-ordered the date-time stamp so that it appears after this one in my journal. All of the links and numbers SHOULD be correct now, so you can read it in order. Please forgive my fanfic transgressions, and I'll try to keep my content in order from now on.
Previous chapters: One, Two, Three, Four(A), Four(B), Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine
Chapter 10
Doctor Ankewicz looked up from the PADD he was reading as Leonard walked into sickbay. He was a tall man who looked like he never quite fit the dimensions of the room around him. Long limbs and long face, with just a bit of gray hair at the temples. He made Leonard feel oddly young, even though Leonard was pretty sure the guy was barely ten years older. “Feeling better, McCoy?”
“Yeah,” Leonard said, cringing at how gravelly his voice sounded. “Twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep will do that to a guy.”
Ankewicz let out a low whistle and put the PADD aside. “Twelve hours? I’m not surprised, though. You’ve been working double shifts for almost a week.”
Leonard knocked back a swig of coffee from his ever-present canteen. “And getting up earlier than than my shift so I can work on my thesis. Yesterday just pushed me over the limit. I’m telling you, I got more sleep during my residency than I have so far on this internship.”
The other doctor chuckled as he stood and stretched. “Did you drink that much coffee during your residency?”
Leonard snorted. “When do you think I got addicted to the stuff?”
“Fair enough,” he said with an easy grin. “Do you have research appointments scheduled today?”
“Just a couple from the beta shift rotation, but... you don’t have to stay. I know you and Doctor Singh pulled longer shifts already so I could get some sleep. I’ll take over from here.”
“Thanks, McCoy. I wasn’t going to ask, but I was hoping you might say that.” He picked up his scrub jacket and draped it over his shoulder. “And if trends continue, it shouldn’t be too bad. It’s been a quiet shift in here. A couple of people with headaches, but that’s about it. And...” He frowned. “No change with Brex.”
It was all Leonard could do to keep from growling. “He might be stable now, but how long can this last? We need to get him seen by Betazoid Healers, in person. Forget this subspace teleconferencing. They can’t diagnose or treat him like that. I don’t give two hoots about this diplomacy stuff right now. The fact that they’re just letting it go on like this? Unbelievable.” He shook his head and leaned against the wall, letting his eyes drift across sickbay to treatment bay two.
“I know, McCoy. And for what it’s worth, here’s a bit of wisdom to take with you to your next assignment.” He reached down and grabbed his PADD, tucking it neatly under his arm. “This is how it always will be. Medical will always take a backseat to everything else on the ship. Your opinion has no major impact on the ship’s mission. Your captain will want you there to patch up his crew, advise on medical safety issues, and deal with alien bacteria and parasites. But at the end of the day, unless the mission is a plague sweeping across a planet, or the mysterious illness of an important diplomat...”
His voice trailed off and he shook his head. “I don’t want to disillusion you or anything, when you’re just getting ready to start your Starfleet career. I don’t always feel like this myself.” He cast a quick glance back at treatment bay two. “It’s just hard not to be cynical right now. This is my second tour with Brex. He’s a good friend.”
Leonard nodded, feeling slightly numb, trying to stave off the hollow sensation of hopelessness. “Yeah,” he said vaguely.
“You take care, and page me or Singh if you need backup.” He gave Leonard a light clap on the shoulder and started walking towards the door.
The familiar sensation of having his shoulder clapped caused something to tighten in Leonard’s throat. He spun around. “Doctor Ankewicz?”
Ankewicz stopped and looked back. “Yes, McCoy?”
“I don’t think all captains would be like that. I’ve got to believe that the role of a ship’s doctor is more than mending broken bones and playing with alien viruses. There have to be captains who see that.”
“Really?” He shook his head, looking defeated. “Then I hope you get to serve under a captain like that. Have a good one, McCoy.” With a wave, he turned and walked out of Sickbay.
Leonard stared at the door. Barely above a whisper, he said to himself, “I hope so, too.”
With a sigh, he turned and pulled up the Sickbay log for the past 24 hours. Quiet. Very little to see. He signed off, then checked in with the duty nurse. Walsh had this shift. She had just finished checking over Doctor Brex, replacing the empty nutrition solution bag. Leonard had hoped he’d regain consciousness before he needed total nutrition supplementation, but that point had long come and passed. Now, there was an apparently healthy person lying on a biobed, completely dependent on tubes and nurses to survive.
But he wasn’t healthy, because he wouldn’t wake up. Dammit.
Even though he was well-rested, Leonard heaved a heavy sigh as he sat down in the chair next to Brex’s bed. It had become part of his routine. He would go and sit with Brex, just holding his hand and talking to him. Sure, the nurses all did that, too... but Leonard still felt responsible. It had happened on his goddamned shift.
Taking Brex’s hand, Leonard gave a quick squeeze. “Told you I’d be back. What’s new out here?” He began conversationally, as if Brex was wide awake. “Well, you might have noticed your Vulcan visitor last night. Or... this morning. Or sometime. I think I’ve lost track of time. Anyway, she said you’re still in there. And she said that your memory is a bit banged up, which makes sense if you look at the scans. I’ll show you the readings and all when you wake up.”
Come on, please wake up.
“So... the Vulcan, Ambassador T’Val... she’s not a healer, so she can’t fix whatever is going on in there, but she took a peek. She’s... an interesting individual. I dunno, maybe Vulcans are all peculiar like that, but hell, I haven’t met too many of them.” He shrugged to himself. “Haven’t met any, really. Pointy ears and green blood. If you know anything about Earth stories called fairy tales, you might know why that’s so damned funny. I think I like T’Val, though. She sent a report along with Doctor Singh to Betazed, and we’re hoping to get some more information back soon. Don’t know what we can really do for you, but we’ll try.
“We’re going to get you to a Betazoid Healer as soon as possible, but I have to be honest... I have no idea how long that will take. Unless the captain changes his mind, we’re stuck here until the Araxis mission is over.” He clenched his jaw slightly. “Captain Porter said that this mission is too important, and while I understand his point, that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
Leonard hunched his shoulders, leaning a bit closer to Brex, and lowering his voice. “I hate that I still don’t know how this happened to you. I hope you remember when you wake up.” He gave Brex’s hand another squeeze.
And felt a squeeze back.
It was faint. It could have been his imagination. “What the...” He looked up at the biobed displays. Without letting go of Brex’s hand, he reached over and pulled up a more detailed scan of brain activity. His scans had been mostly normal except for those few areas of reduced and atypical activity... which were now looking almost completely normal again.
Leonard whipped his head back around and gave Brex’s hand a tight squeeze. “Doctor Brex? If you can hear me, squeeze my hand. Come on. Give me a sign here.”
It wasn’t his imagination. There was a definite squeeze. Stronger this time.
Narrowly holding back his surge of excitement, Leonard called out over his shoulder, “Nurse Walsh! We’ve got a change in consciousness level!” Then quieter again, “Doctor Brex... Tavin... try to open your eyes. Can you speak?”
Hardly perceptible, Brex’s mouth moved.
Nurse Walsh burst into the treatment bay. “Has he opened his eyes? Are you going to try a stimulant?”
Leonard almost called for the stimulant, eager for more rapid improvement, but he shook his head. “No, and no. It’s never helped before, probably because this isn’t working like a normal coma. Let’s see if he’ll come out of it on his own.” He looked back down and leaned closer. “Come on, Doctor Brex... we’re right here. You can do it. Let’s see those peepers.”
Eyelids twitched. Fluttered. Blinked a few times.
“Computer,” Leonard said, “Reduce light in treatment bay two by seventy percent.”
The lights dimmed.
Brex opened his eyes. “McCoy?” His voice was rusty and dry, barely above a whisper, but the word was clear.
Leonard nodded, squeezing Brex’s hand again. “Yeah, it’s me,” he choked out, and realized that he was getting emotional. He swallowed it back. Professional. Right. Still, Brex had recognized him, which meant his memory wasn’t completely shot. Damn, it was a relief. “It’s me,” he said again. “How are you feeling? Are you in any pain?”
“No... thirsty.” He slowly turned his face to one side, then the other. “And stiff.”
Leonard looked up at Nurse Walsh. “Can you grab a cup of water with a straw?”
“Of course,” she said, smiling. Leonard didn’t mention the moisture on her eyelashes.
Leonard refocused on Brex. “Do you know where you are? Or how you got here?”
“I...” Brex looked around, taking in his surroundings. “I’m in sickbay. But... I’m a patient? What happened to me?”
Leonard breathed another mental sigh of relief. Brex was lucid and aware of his surroundings. “You lost consciousness, and you’ve been out for a while,” he said, not wanting to overwhelm the man all at once. “Can you sit up?”
“I... yes, I can.”
Leonard helped Brex into a sitting position, watching his balance and muscular coordination, and was somewhat shocked at how easily he moved. Sure, Brex seemed a bit stiff from holding still for so long, but he sat up almost entirely on his own. That was certainly not normal for a coma patient.
Brex glanced from side to side as if looking for something. “What time is it?”
“Around 0200 hours,” Leonard said cautiously.
Brex nodded, and was still quietly processing that information when Walsh came back in.
“I’ve got some water for you, Doctor.” She held it out with a hopeful smile.
Brex started to make a weak grab for the glass, but Leonard reached out and took it for him. “Sorry for the indignity and all, but you’ve been unconscious for a while, and if your coordination is off, I’d rather not risk giving you an ice cold bath on the biobed.”
“I don’t feel uncoordinated,” he said in confusion. Still, he cooperatively accepted the straw as Leonard held up the water glass for him, but his eyebrows furrowed more deeply as he looked around. He looked alert, but really uneasy as he got his bearings. Finally, he leaned back from the water glass, frowning.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Leonard asked casually, hoping Brex would come to the memories himself, if possible.
The question seemed to distract him from his thoughts. “We were... there was...” He screwed up his face, eyebrows furrowing deeply. “I was on duty, waiting for the Axanar delegates to arrive at their appointment.”
An uncomfortable sensation started twisting in Leonard’s gut. There had been two appointments, neither of which had been the morning Brex had lost consciousness. “Which appointment?”
“What do you mean, which appointment? The one that they’re scheduled for. The same one that all visitors on the ship get scheduled for.”
“So... the Axanar haven’t missed their appointment?” Leonard asked carefully.
“How could they? They just came on board a few hours ago...” Confusion rapidly turned into dismay. “How long have I been out?”
Leonard swallowed tightly. “A week. You’ve been unconscious for a week.”
“What caused it?” Brex asked rapidly. “What did the scans show?”
Leonard shook his head. “We don’t know. The closest thing we can figure is that you fell into an inexplicable coma a week ago with no evidence of injury or illness, and we haven’t been able to revive you. You came around on your own.”
Brex was shaking his head. “If this was a coma, would I be this alert so quickly?”
“No,” Leonard agreed. “And it wasn’t... well... the scans didn’t look right for a coma, but you were completely unresponsive. There was no other way to classify your condition. And...” He looked up at Nurse Walsh. “Could you do me a favor? Go page Doctor Singh. She’d want to know about this immediately. And... hell, I’m sure Ankewicz is still up, so you might as well pass on the news. Then send a communique to the bridge, letting them know. But until Singh gets here, give me a few minutes to talk to Brex alone and get him oriented.”
She gave a quick nod. “Yes, doctor.” Then she hurried off to the nurse’s station.
Leonard turned back to Brex, whose expression had shifted into something vulnerable and scared the instant the nurse had left the room. He recognized that sort of behavior. He’d seen it in people who were used to being in charge, and in Jim. “Doctor Brex? Are you sure you’re okay?”
This time, he shook his head. “McCoy, think something at me.”
“What?” Leonard actually startled at the odd request, and Brex’s unusually harsh tone of voice.
“Think something at me,” he said again. “As hard as you can. Loud. Think of a single, focused thing, anything that you can stick vividly in the front of your mind.”
“I... okay, but...” He didn’t understand why, but he didn’t question the request, and quickly called to mind the image of a hot, fresh cup of coffee, and thought about how desperately he wanted a cup right now.
“Are you doing it?”
“Yes, but...” Leonard’s voice trailed off as Brex began shaking his head. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t sense you.” Brex finally looked up and made eye contact again. His expression was bleak. “Nothing. I can’t hear your thoughts at all. Not even emotions. Nothing.”
“What?” Leonard spun around and tabbed a few commands into the biobed’s scanners, then grabbed the tricorder from the supply table and began a manual scan. “Is it just me? Can you sense anyone else?”
Brex was shaking his head slowly. “It’s like a ghost ship. There’s nobody there,” he said vaguely.
“Maybe it’s a side-effect of being unconscious for so long,” Leonard murmured, half to himself, half to Brex. “Maybe your brain just hasn’t caught up with being awake.”
“I don’t think so,” Brex said, but Leonard ignored him.
“We’ll need to do a more detailed scan, but it looks like you have slightly decreased activity in your psi centers,” Leonard rattled off. “We could try a stimulant. Or maybe it’ll improve once we get you up and walking around. Or maybe it’s -”
“Leonard.” Brex put his hand on the tricorder and slowly pushed it down until Leonard stopped staring at the screen and made eye contact. His demeanor was surprisingly calm, but Leonard could still see the anxiety hiding just below the surface. It was the sort of calm in the face of something terrifying that seemed like the hallmark of the best Starfleet officers. “We can’t fix it until we know what caused it. We need to contact Betazed. And -”
“We need to give you a chance to recover,” Leonard said firmly.
“We need to get to the bottom of this,” Brex said, not backing down. “And what’s this about the Axanar missing their appointment? If that happened while I was unconscious, how would I remember it?”
Leonard sighed inwardly. Doctor Brex was a man of science, and wouldn’t want information kept from him. “It didn’t happen while you were unconscious. That’s why I wanted to know what the last thing you could remember is. You had some odd electrical activity in your posterior cyngulate gyrus and temporal lobes, as well as your anterior sub-temporal-lobe. We worried that it might have impacted your memory.”
Brex was nodding slowly. “I remember looking at the chronometer and thinking that the Axanar should be arriving any minute. It was absolutely clear.” Then he frowned, and tilted his head. His gaze fixed on the far wall. “That’s not right. There’s other stuff, but... it’s like a dream, just beyond the edge of memory. And...” He shook his head. “McCoy... how many days passed between the Axanar’s appointment and when I lost consciousness?”
“Two. Almost two full days. Are you remembering something?”
Brex shook his head again, still staring at the far wall. “Did anything odd happen in those days?”
“The Axanar missed their appointment and rescheduled to the next day. They came to that appointment, but you got a strange feeling off them, or so you said. You sent me a communique saying you wanted to meet me the morning after the appointment when they actually showed up... but you showed up an hour late, as if you’d forgotten everything. You passed out not long after you got here. The communique you sent to me is missing from the ship’s database, as if someone deleted it.” Leonard felt like he was lost. Scrambling. “Doctor Brex... what’s going on?”
Brex pressed his lips together, then shook his head. “I don’t know. But whatever else isn’t working, my gut instinct, as you call it, is working just fine, and it’s telling me that something more is going on here, and we need to find out what it is.” He looked down at the tube in his hand and then peeked under the sheets, obviously checking what else he was connected to. “And we need to get all rid of all this mess so I can get off the biobed.”
“Are you sure? You’ve been unconscious for a week. The body doesn’t bounce back from a coma this fast.”
“I’ve never been in a coma, McCoy, but I’ve seen enough people wake up from them to know that this is something else. Other than feeling a bit stiff, I’m lucid, and I don’t feel uncoordinated.”
“You’ve got a gaping hole in your memory, and one of your essential neurological functions has blown a conduit,” Leonard said flatly.
Brex gave him a chagrined look. “Yeah. But I’m not an invalid. Get me off this thing, and let’s see if we can get to the bottom of this. Oh, and I could really go for something to eat right about now.”
Leonard nodded, reluctantly. He grabbed a pair of gloves, a piece of gauze, and a dermaseal bandage from the supply cabinet and sat down to remove the IV, but before he started, he gave Brex a searching look.
“What?”
“You said you almost-remember things after that morning. A bit like a dream. I know you can’t rely on that, but...” Leonard trusted his own gut instincts. He trusted Jim’s. He didn’t trust much else in the world, but his gut instincts were telling him that he could trust Brex, too. “Do you still have any impressions from that? Anything you can pull out of those hazy memories?”
For a long moment, Brex was quiet. Then, “It’s just an impression... but I keep thinking of a set of twins... not identical... and one doesn’t trust the other. No... that’s not it. It’s not a trust issue. Like a disagreement... something that can’t be reconciled. No compromise. But... gods, it’s a feeling, not anything I can describe without... well...” He pressed his lips into a bitter smirk and shook his head sadly. “Without telepathy. But even then, it’s so vague, and I have nothing I can pin it to.”
Leonard frowned. In the short time he’d worked with Doctor Brex, he’d known the Betazoid to be calm, emotionally balanced, and always in perfect control of himself. He’d never been flustered in the slightest. But then, of course, the guy had just lost one of his senses and several days of memories. That would send anyone into a tailspin. So Leonard just nodded. “I know it’s vague. I wasn’t expecting details. I was just... wondering.”
Brex gave him a defeated look. “I know. Sorry for the outburst.”
“No apologies needed,” Leonard replied. “Here, let’s get you unhooked and off the biobed. Doctor Singh should be here any minute, possibly with the Captain.” With practiced motions, Leonard pressed down with the gauze and pulled out the catheter. “Here, hold this. And...” He hesitated.
“What, Leonard?”
Leonard managed a wan smile. “It’s good to see you with your eyes open.”
Brex returned the smile, warmly and openly. “It’s good to have my eyes open. And... I don’t know how I’m so sure of this, but I know you’ve been sitting with me. Thank you.”
Feeling a warm tightness behind his eyes, Leonard opened his mouth to attempt an adequate reply, but the sound of the main door to Sickbay sliding opened cut him off. He sighed. “I think the welcoming committee has arrived.”
Leonard stepped back from the bed just in time for Doctor Singh to hurry around the curtain and grab a tricorder, speaking rapidly. Only seconds later, Captain Porter hurried through the doors, apparently having just beamed up from the surface when he heard the news. Ankewicz appeared after another minute, hair dripping wet, apparently having just gotten out of the shower.
In all the commotion, Leonard slipped out of Sickbay, unnoticed.
*********
Jim rubbed his eyes sleepily against the bright light of the hallway as he stepped out of his quarters. The door slid shut behind him. “This had better be important, Bones,” he said, then coughed and cleared his throat. “Your comm woke up everyone in the room, including me.”
Bones, who was fully dressed and looked far too awake for 0300 in the morning, rolled his eyes and grabbed Jim by the arm. “It’s important. Come on. Need a place where we can talk.”
Jim shook off his grip. “No, Bones. It’s the middle of the night, I only got to bed an hour ago, I need to be awake in three hours, and I’m out of uniform. Tell me here.”
Bones looked around warily, then sighed. “Brex woke up,” he said in a low tone.
Suddenly, Jim felt a lot more awake. “I... that’s awesome... how is he? Has he been able to talk? What did he say? Who did it to him?”
Bones was shaking his head slowly. “Physically? He’s doing a hell of a lot better than I would have expected. In fact, it’s crazy, but at first glance, he looks fine. Talking, lucid, mobile, but... he can’t remember anything. Nothing from the attack, or two whole days leading up to the incident.”
“That’s good... and bad,” Jim replied carefully.
“You said it.” He took one more nervous glance up and down the hallway, and then stepped closer to Jim, speaking barely above a whisper. “Also... his telepathy is gone.”
“What?” Jim hissed. “Shit. Not good. Really not good. And it’s specifically his telepathy and his memory from the two days before he went into the coma? Nothing else is wrong?”
“Everything else seems absolutely fine when we check his scans up against Betazoid norms and the scans that he took of himself earlier that week,” Bones said, shaking his head. “And even in the parts of his brain that process his telepathic sense and memory, there’s nothing structurally wrong.”
A hundred thoughts ran through Jim’s head, including the fact that he shouldn’t be getting into this, but his instinct was screaming that someone had attacked Brex with a really specific purpose in mind. The initial loss of consciousness was suspicious enough, but for a telepath to lose his ability to read minds just when fishy stuff was happening? It didn’t seem like a coincidence. However... Jim had enough personal experience with paranoid suspicions of sabotage to know better than to latch on to vague suspicions without solid evidence. Forcing his paranoia into a box with a tight lid, Jim asked, “What could cause that?”
“I don’t know. We’ve been in contact with Betazed about this since it began, but we sent a new communique when he woke up. We’re still waiting for a reply from the healers there, but until they examine him directly, even they might not have answers. It could be anything. Hell, it could be a result of the coma itself,” Bones said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “Could be a response to whatever happened to his brain and memory in the first place. Could be part of the recuperative process for this particular situation.”
“But you don’t think so,” Jim said, knowing Bones would keep filling in details as long as Jim gave him openings.
“I’ve done some research, and the literature from Betazed has some references to memory and sensory loss, including telepathic sense, after long-term loss of consciousness, but... I don’t know what I think, kid.” He wrapped his arms around his stomach and took a deep breath. “But I do have a question for you.”
“Hit me.”
“If I told you to think of an image of two people... twins, but not identical ones... where one didn’t trust the other... or had some sort of irreconcilable disagreement, what’s the first thing you think of?”
Jim frowned. “You mean like an allegory? Maybe two actual people, but maybe two groups, who are effectively similar but they’re at odds?”
“Anything,” Bones said, his voice carefully neutral.
“The Hatfields and the McCoys.”
Bones scowled in a way Jim had never seen before. “If you ever say that again, I will find ways to torment you that you can’t possibly imagine.”
Jim waggled his eyebrows and flashed his best lovable idiot grin. “Kinky, Bones!”
“Jim.”
“I know, I know.” He sighed. “It’s almost too obvious. The Axanar and the Araxians. And I almost don’t want to know, but... did Brex say something like that?”
Bones nodded, then readjusted his arms across his chest. “Could have been something he dreamed while he was out. Could be nothing. But Jim... there’s got to be more going on.”
Jim opened his mouth, but swallowed back his agreement before the words could form. He couldn’t go there. Fuck, he wanted to dig right in, and he knew there was something more going on, but if he admitted it, he’d be going down a rabbit hole and he didn’t know if he’d be able to dig out again. Feeling angry at himself and maybe a bit sick, he forced himself to shrug. “It’s possible.”
Bones scowled at him. “Jim, I know you said don’t want to get involved, even though it’s making me wonder who the hell you are and what happened to the real Jim Kirk, but there’s something going on here.”
“I know, I know, I know!” Jim hissed. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes for a second, trying to clear his head. “God damn... Bones, you know what happened last time I got too wrapped up in mysteries and conspiracies and other paranoid shit. I can’t do this again. Not now! Not here!”
“Jim... slow down. This isn’t what happened last year. This is... this is real. We’re both seeing the same thing, and there’s no mistaking it. I’ve seen it up-close. You know there’s something going on. And I’ve been pulled into enough meetings with senior officers about Brex to get a decent sense of what they’re doing with all this horse shit.”
“A whole lot of nothing,” Jim said tightly.
“Sure as hell seems like it.”
Jim pinched his bottom lip between his teeth. He really didn’t want to hold back anymore. It was too late, and he was too tired. And fuck it, this was Bones... and Bones was right. Jim let out a heavy sigh. “If there’s something going on, and they miss it, there could be real trouble,” he said, voicing the root of the fear that had been nagging at him for days.
Bones eyes widened for just a split second before he nodded firmly. “Damned straight. They’ve got enough evidence that... dammit, they should have found something by now!”
“They should have enough evidence to know that something fishy is going on,” Jim agreed.
“Then why the hell aren’t they treating it with more suspicion?” Bones growled. “How can they not see it?”
“Because there’s nothing solid. It’s circumstance. And because the diplomatic situation is so delicate, they’re going to sit on it,” Jim answered, trying not to sound like that idea made his blood boil.
“Like a damned hen trying to hatch a rock.”
Jim snorted. “And you call me a farm boy.”
“Only to get a rise out of you. So... what do you think?”
Jim stared at Bones for a long moment, letting his thoughts swirl in his sleep-deprived brain. Nothing solidified. “I don’t know.”
Bones pressed his lips together, staring at the wall. “Neither do I, kid. Neither do I.”
*********
To Chapter 11